Why aren’t we paying more attention to the unhealthy substances in the air that we’re breathing, particularly indoors?
We live in an era of health fads. We’re constantly bombarded with an endless stream of, “Here’s the next new thing you’ve got to try to improve your health.” There’s a wealth of opportunities available to prioritize wellness through diet, supplements, daily habits, mental training, exercise, and the like. Yet, chronic illness continues to spread like wildfire throughout the world. Nearly half of all Americans (approximately 45 percent, or 133 million) suffer from at least one chronic disease. Almost 60 percent of the global population (or roughly 4.5 billion people) reports having a chronic illness. If we have access to better technological and medical advancements than ever before, what are we missing?
The answer is relatively simple — so simple that we’ve failed as a society to consider it when pondering that pinnacle “healthy lifestyle.” It boils down to routes of exposure: We talk a lot about drinking clean water and eating uncontaminated food, and we’ve been made aware of the importance of protecting our skin from unwanted exposures to harmful mediums. But there’s another route of exposure: the air we breathe. Why aren’t we paying more attention to the unhealthy substances in the air that we’re breathing, particularly indoors?
Understanding air quality
According to the American Lung Association, the average person breathes around 20,000 breaths daily, or around 2,000 gallons of air. That’s almost enough to fill up a swimming pool! We consume more air than anything else throughout the day, which is why it’s essential to our survival. We can go about 7–10 days without food and about three days without water. We can only survive for a few minutes without air.
The best part is that these inhalations are generally automatic and controlled subconsciously. The unfortunate aspect of this instinctive action is our lack of awareness about our air quality. What exactly is in the massive amount of air we breathe every day? It can negatively affect our health if filled with harmful, microscopic particles like mold, bacteria, toxins, and more. Just because we can’t see these contaminants doesn’t mean they’re not present.
The small nature of these substances gives them their harmful power. Not only are they too small for you to notice and avoid, but according to the American Lung Association, anything smaller than 10 micrometers, or microns, poses the most significant risk to our health because it can be inhaled into the body and enter our lungs. In comparison, the size of a single strand of human hair is approximately 70 microns in diameter. Once these contaminants enter the body, they trigger an immune system response to get them out. Some examples of these particles include mold spores, mycotoxins, bacteria, VOCs, and wildfire smoke. Another source of airborne pollution that’s rising in public awareness is microplastics and nanoplastics. One study found that we may be breathing in about 16.2 bits of microplastic every hour, which equates to about a credit card’s worth of plastic entering our bodies over an entire week.
Superfine particulate matter (less than 0.1 microns in diameter) can bypass our body’s self-defense mechanisms and enter the bloodstream. The further it travels into our bodies, the greater the risk of developing multisystem symptoms and chronic illnesses. Some examples include particles from cigarette smoke, vehicular exhaust, burning wood, some viruses, and soot from candles.
The next puzzle piece for the bigger picture is where we breathe all this air. According to experts, we spend around 90 percent of our time indoors. This means our indoor air contributes the most to those 20,000 daily inhalations. If you’re thinking, “What a relief, surely my home is cleaner and safer than the polluted air outside!” you’d be mistaken.
So, how healthy is indoor air?
One factor that’s important to consider in this equation is modern building practices. The push for net-zero energy efficiency has led to tighter-built buildings with minimal airflow between indoor and outdoor environments. The result is that most contaminants that make their way inside the building will remain until they are actively removed. That’s why this finding from the EPA’s Office of Research and Development’s “Total Exposure Assessment Methodology (TEAM) Study” (Volumes I through IV, completed in 1985) makes sense: They “found levels of about a dozen common organic pollutants to be 2 to 5 times higher inside homes than outside, regardless of whether the homes were located in rural or highly industrial areas.” A few of these pollutants include Benzene and Xylene. Benzene is a natural part of crude oil, gasoline, and cigarette smoke, and is widely used in the United States to make other chemicals that are used in plastics, resins, and nylon and synthetic fibers. Benzene is also used to make some types of lubricants, rubbers, dyes, detergents, drugs, and pesticides. Xylene can enter the home via paint thinners, solvents, lacquers, and paint removers.
Overwhelmed? Picture your home as a snow globe, except the snowflakes are those invisible contaminants. As you go about your day, you’re sitting, walking, eating, talking, and sleeping in a dome full of particle-filled air. With every breath you take, more of those particles enter the body. If there are high levels of contaminants, that increases the exposure you’ll face throughout the day and over time. This sparks a prolonged immune system response, which may eventually lead to malfunction, allowing autoimmune symptoms and conditions to occur.
That’s the impact of air quality and why this statement by researchers makes so much sense: “Exposure to air pollution was associated with higher risk of developing autoimmune diseases.”
While much more research is needed to understand the extent to which poor indoor air quality impacts our health and bodies, more and more studies are showcasing just how powerful the effect can be. This study discovered many of the nodes in the lungs of nonsmokers they analyzed appeared black. They should be beige. Upon analysis, the researchers found that the organs were filled with particles from airborne pollutants. This significantly impaired their ability to defend the body against pathogens, resulting in higher susceptibility to respiratory illness.
How to improve indoor air quality
At this point, you might be more than a bit concerned about all the “stuff” in the air surrounding you. That’s a good thing! The more we understand how air quality can impact our bodies, the more empowered we’ll be to take action and proactively work to improve our environments, reduce exposure, and address any issues we face. We’ve got to start assessing how to improve our air to optimize our wellness. Then, we’ve got to start implementing methods to create healthier environments and significantly reduce the number of particles, toxins, mold, bacteria, chemicals, VOCs, formaldehyde, high electromagnetic frequencies, and viruses we’re exposed to daily. The fewer exposures we have, the less our immune systems will have to work and the healthier we will become.
Some great steps that we can take right off the bat to improve our air quality include:
- Investing in air purification with technology that can eliminate the smallest particles possible, as well as gases. I suggest the Intellipure Compact. Their purifiers harness the power of patented DFS technology, eliminating up to 99.99 percent of particles as small as 0.007 microns. For those looking for a whole-house system, the Intellipure SuperV is a great choice. The system is installed at the home’s point of entry and filters out particles for the entire place, eliminating the space requirements that smaller units have. Essentially, it turns the HVAC into a filtration system.
- Clean regularly with botanical cleaning products, HEPA vacuum cleaners, and microfiber towels to reduce contaminated dust and other particles. I suggest Benefect Decon 30 as a botanical product. Instead of harsh chemicals, Benefect is made with botanical ingredients and a unique Optimized Dynamic Chemistry (ODC) surfactant system to handle any particles present on a surface properly. That way, they can be wiped away with a microfiber cloth. When properly cleansing a surface, this is key because leaving particles behind will allow them to continue building up.
- Upgrade to the highest-rated MERV filter the HVAC system can handle so that the filters actually remove tiny particles in the air and change them on time
- Avoid using products with known contaminants like VOCs and PFAS
- Wash all porous items with a botanical laundry additive that will eliminate small particles from the surface so that they don’t continue to build up and cause unwanted exposures. I suggest EC3 Laundry Additive. EC3 uses natural botanical ingredients to tackle microscopic particles safely and efficiently. Their specific cocktail utilizes citrus seed extracts to eliminate contaminants. It also features tea tree oil and natural surfactants, which help pull particles from the fibers of porous items and rinse them away.
- Maintain indoor humidity between 35-50 percent to avoid problems like microbial growth
- Schedule service appointments for the HVAC system bi-annually to make sure it’s operating properly and not blasting contaminants throughout the home
- Test indoor dust annually to assess for hidden problems like microbial growth
- Reduce clutter and opt for more non-porous surfaces so that the home can be cleaned more thoroughly
- Routinely check for microbial growth and water damage in the home, including hotspots like the attic, HVAC coil, underneath sinks, basement, and crawl spaces
We must also stop normalizing chronic symptoms and consider if environmental factors are at play. If the exposure is found, actions can be taken to avoid the source, remedy the issue, and begin healing. Not all chronic illnesses are due to environmental exposures, but it’s time that we began considering it as a key influencing player, even if only to rule it out.
Society may not have caught on to environmental impacts on health yet, but that doesn’t mean we can’t jump ahead of the curve.
Michael Rubino is a mold and air quality expert, environmental wellness advocate, and founder of HomeCleanse, a revolutionary company with the vision to end the worldwide health epidemic caused by poor air quality and toxic indoor environments. He is also president of Change the Air Foundation and Host of the Never Been Sicker podcast.
